Chapter 13 #2
“Yeah.” I licked my lips, tried not to think of licking something else, and forced myself to focus. She was suddenly the biggest distraction at the campground. “The Shining.”
Her face went theatrically animated. “Mine too!” She pointed at her chest. “Do you know what most people say to me when I say that’s my favorite?”
“That Stephen King famously hates the movie, so it shouldn’t count.”
“Yes!” She pumped her fist in something akin to victory. “Do you know what I say?”
“That it’s a great movie with the best ambiance in all of horror land.”
“Also a yes.” She skipped closer. “What do you think about Dr. Sleep?”
Ah, the official sequel to The Shining that melded King’s book with the Kubrick movie to tug on nostalgia. “That it got a raw deal and it’s actually really good.”
“Thank you.” She threw her hands up as if exulting the moon, and the move did nothing to calm my libido.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to roll around in the grass with her.
Well, as long as we didn’t risk running into snakes.
My hormones were suddenly raging, but if one thing could dampen that effect, it was a snake. I did not like creepy crawlies.
On impulse, I wrapped my arm around her waist. I didn’t so much hug her as tickle her, all for an excuse to touch her under the guise of playing our horror game. I kept at it because otherwise I would have to explain my actions, and I didn’t want to do that.
“What’s your favorite bad horror movie?” I asked.
She squirmed and gasped as my fingers found her rib cage. She felt unbelievably delicate in my arms, as if a stiff breeze could hurt her. She’d told me her story though, at least the important bits. I knew she was tough. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to stand as her shield.
If Jason Voorhees was heading in our direction, I would totally serve as a distraction so she could get away, something I always found stupid in horror movies.
If Jason was going to get both of them, why not sacrifice the girl so the more athletic man could get away?
Here, in this moment, with Bella laughing and squirming against my pounding heart, I would die a thousand times to give her that shot.
“Ghost Ship,” she blurted, causing me to release her and stand up straight.
I was suspicious as I stared down at her. “With Karl Urban?”
“Yes.” She gave me a wary look. “Why? Are you about to tell me that it’s a terrible movie?”
“You already know it’s a terrible movie.”
“But?” she pushed.
“But it has one of the best openings of any horror movie ever.”
“It really does,” she agreed.
“It also has great ambiance.”
“It really does.” Her grin grew. “It just doesn’t quite hold together the way it should.”
“No, but it has a banging soundtrack, and I watch it at least once a year.”
The way she looked at me, as if I’d just stepped in front of a bullet for her, made me irrationally angry.
Not at her, of course, but at stupid Preston.
He’d ruined this beautiful woman’s self-esteem.
He’d made her doubt everything. She was trying so hard to get back what she’d lost, but his presence, the fear he’d instilled in her, was making it a slow process.
I wanted to make him pay for everything he was doing to her.
“What’s your guilty-pleasure horror movie?” she asked.
I forced myself to think on it and not go with my knee-jerk reaction.
“You know,” she said, her tone teasing. “Don’t drag it out,” she warned. “I told you.”
“Yes, but yours turned out to be a solid horror movie with a bad ending,” I said. “Mine is… different.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The only way I will mock you is if you say it’s Halloween: Resurrection.”
I burst out laughing before I realized it was going to happen. “Yes, when a rapper took out Michael.”
“I’m not a big fan of the sixth one either,” she admitted. “I love Paul Rudd as much as anybody, but that movie does not hold together.”
“What’s your favorite Halloween movie?”
“You haven’t answered my other question,” she whined.
“Just tell me, and I’ll answer.”
“Fine.” She made a face that I secretly found adorable. “I’m supposed to say the first one, and it is a classic. I like the second one too. Weirdly, however, the one set at the boarding school with Josh Hartnett is my favorite.”
“Why that one?”
“Josh Hartnett is hot.”
Her answer was too easy. “Why really?”
“Because I like the moment when Laurie locks herself in with Michael and goes on the offensive. They ruin it in the next one, say it was some innocent guy she beheaded. That ending was amazing when it was Michael, though.” She looked wistful enough that I wondered if she wanted to do that to Preston, at least metaphorically.
“House of Wax,” I announced, causing her to jolt. “The Chad Michael Murray one.”
“That’s your favorite bad horror movie?” She was agog.
“The ambiance is amazing. The acting is solid. The story holds together. The special effects are solid.” I took a breath. “It also does the one thing we’ve all wanted to do at one time in our lives.”
A sly smile took over her features. “Shove a huge rod through Paris Hilton’s head?” she assumed.
I grinned. She got me, and she didn’t judge. That felt somehow miraculous.
“I like that one, too, although I have a thing about dolls. I don’t like them. The wax figures in that movie felt like giant dolls, and it freaked me out.”
“It’s good to know about the dolls.” I held out my hand to her, briefly wondering if she would take it.
She didn’t hesitate before twining her fingers through mine. “This is fun. What other bad horror movies do you like? I love Jason X, which was mentioned at dinner.”
“That movie gets far too much hate,” I agreed.
“It’s fun. Do you know what’s kind of a horror movie and gets crapped on but that I watch whenever I see it?
” I felt like I was confiding in my new best friend.
Sure, she was a best friend I was suddenly dying to strip naked and kiss all over, but I was trying to ignore that part.
“Which one?”
“The Happening.”
She froze. This time she wasn’t smiling. “The one where Mark Wahlberg talks to plants?”
I laughed at her horror. “I find the build-up great.”
“He’s terrible, though.”
“That’s why it’s funny.”
She considered it. “Okay, I’ll give you that, but I don’t like M. Night movies. He got lucky with one gimmick, and then he became married to them whether they worked or not. It was painful.”
“Speaking of your crush Josh Hartnett, Trap was a crappy comeback vehicle.”
“Oppenheimer was his comeback vehicle. Trap is better left forgotten.”
“On that we can absolutely agree.”